


insaniam convertunt

by lemonpie



Category: Orange is the New Black
Genre: Character Study, Gen, Introspection, POV Third Person Omniscient, Sister-Sister Relationship
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-09-30
Updated: 2018-10-05
Packaged: 2019-07-20 15:37:33
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 908
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16140281
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lemonpie/pseuds/lemonpie
Summary: A look at the Denning sisters through the years, and how things could have changed for them.(Psychopaths are born, sociopaths are made.)





	1. Chapter 1

There is two years between Barb and Carol. 

This is perhaps for the best, since niether can remember a time without one another. But they  _can_ remember a time without Debbie, and that is where the resentment starts. 

Five year old Carol and seven year old Barb hate baby Debbie. To be more specific, Barb hates Debbie, and Carol follows her sister in that like she does in everything. 

At five, Carol is already difficult to deal with. She's a whirlwind, a feral child, and they have yet to send her to school more than twice simply because she's... Well. She's a lot. 

Barb, by comparason, is easy. She brushes her teeth and keeps her ears clean without being told, she's smart and polite and all the things Carol isn't. Her parents adore her.

(Debbie changes this. The resentment bubbles into all-out hate.) 

Debbie is the perfect child. Soft and sweet and quiet, and she's so good at everything she does. 

Barb hates Debbie, but she's quiet about it. She acts as if she likes her, when in reality, the hatred is just below the surface, waiting for her time to strike. 

Carol hates Debbie too, but by then Carol hates everyone, even herself. Especially herself. In fact, the one person she doesn't flat-out hate is Barb. They argue, yes, but even at fourteen, Carol still tiptoes into her room to apologise and give her a hug and Barb still steals gumballs and lollipops for her when she wants them. 

(Once, Debbie asks if she can have one from Carol. Barb knows the signs by now, of her about to fly into a fit, so she plucks a gumball out of Carols hand, puts it in her own mouth, and says  _fuck off, debbie, this is big kid stuff,_ and then lets Carol pummel her pillow and scream into her shoulder until the rage goes away.)

It's the day they have to move again that Carol flies so far off the handle Barb has no choice but to follow. 

_We could kill her._

_Too obvious. It would have to look like an accident._

It looks enough like an accident that they get eight whole months of freedom before they're arrested. 

It comes in the form of another classmate asking

_why do you look so happy? isnt your sister dead?_

The police take another day to get to their house, but Carol has never been good at lying and Barb isn't there so she doesn't have anything to cling to. 

The truth comes out soon enough, and then they're both handcuffed to a police van opposite one another. 

They get done for first degree murder, each with a tarrif of twenty five years. They'll be old when they get out. 

Carol whispers this to Barb as they walk out of the courtroom, and her laughter follows the Jury for weeks. 

The Dennings become legendary on the outside. 

The Little Debbie Killers.

 


	2. Chapter 2

It begins with the two of them together. In this, like they are in everything, together they're unstoppable. 

But Carol has always,  _always_ been (a fucking psycho) unpredictable, prone to random fits of rage. 

\--

In one universe, the universe we know, Carol and Barbara Denning become mortal enemies over a simple story. 

In another, Barb doesn't feel the need to take credit, allows Carol to tell her story with nothing more than a scoff and and an eyeroll, and that is that. Later, at night, Carol climbs down from the top bunk and crawls into Barb's bed, and Barb lets her because she'd do anything for Carol, even if the beds are not nearly large enough for it. 

In this universe, Carol and Barb Denning are a joint, unstoppable force, rather than being the 'unstoppable force meets immovable object' that they are in the other. Together they rise to the top of the ranks, because Barb is smart and Carol is fierce and both of them know exactly what they're doing. 

(In this universe, Barb still gets addicted to her product, but Carol stops her, helps her through the shakes and the vomiting and picks up her slack on work duty, and anyone who dares even look at Barb in those times gets a shiv to the side. People eventually learn to leave the two of them alone.) 

So when the cookies from minimum camp come rolling in, there's no C-block vs D-block for them to contend with. Instead, Barb and Carol both tag-team the place, storming the castle as it were. They know better than to riot, because despite everything they aren't fools. They still sell drugs, cigarettes sometimes, cell phones even. But the COs leave them well enough alone, because the Denning Sisters are not worth the hassle. Especially not when they're together. 

Barb still enlists Daddy, Lorna, and Nicky, and Carol still takes Red and Alex, but they're interchangeable, now, Barb and Carol, the two of them run the place but they're so co-dependent that when Barb gets taken to the SHU, Carol goes on a rampage and screams at anyone that goes near her, and when Carol gets taken, Barb retreats so far into herself that she won't leave her cell. 

The others learn to take the hits for them, because without their fearless leaders things fall apart. 

This is the new universe, the universe where the Denning sisters remain true sisters. 

This is the universe where things don't go so awfully, horribly wrong. 


End file.
